Carmen Torres

Marketing and Promotions Professional specializing in Spanish and General Market Radio. Blogger at Carmen's Blog Unleashing Your Inner Chingona

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Everything Trump touches turns to shit.

[Senator Adam Schiff @SenAdamSchiff]

Senate Republicans just voted to send ICE $72 BILLION without any reforms.

Now ICE is hiding data on the condition of their detention facilities, their treatment of detainees, and the deaths that have resulted.

Republicans chose to bankroll this cruelty and lack of transparency.

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

Pay attention.

Late last night the Trump-packed Supreme Court issued an UNSIGNED order to help Republicans erase Black voters and keep a congressional seat.

The Court's legitimacy is earned and they are burning it to the ground.

MAGA is rigging our democracy in real time!

[Senator Adam Schiff @SenAdamSchiff]

With summer vacations looming and monthly budgets straining, Republicans in Congress just unveiled their latest budget.

Their grand plan?

$70 billion for ICE and Border Patrol

$1 billion for Trump's gold-plated ballroom

And $0 for your bottom line.

I wish I was kidding.

[Political Punk @actingliketommy]

I saw this video on Viola Davis' instagram this morning and everyone needs to see it.

The gutting of the VRA is the most significant attack on ALL civil rights in America in my lifetime, and after they already came for the women..

We better wake the fuck up. None of us is safe:

[David J. Bier @David_J_Bier]

ICE pulled a gun on a NY teenager, beat him, and then realized they got the wrong guy. Like other cases targeting citizens, ICE dumped him in a random location far from his home, bloody and injured.

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

🇺🇸🧐
This is beyond outrageous.
Openly, shamelessly, without fear of anyone, he is robbing America right in front of the entire country — robbing all of us.
Kaitlan Collins, host of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, described the situation this way:
“Imagine suing the government for $10 billion while also being the person who controls that very government. That’s exactly what is happening right now. Donald Trump, sitting in the White House, has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Treasury Department and the IRS — the very Treasury he controls, the very IRS he oversees, the very government he leads.
He is effectively both the plaintiff and the defendant, and he wants taxpayers — you, me, every working family in America — to hand him $10 billion. Just think about that.”
Trump even appeared on television boasting that he had already “won,” essentially bragging that he was negotiating a settlement with himself.
Then his lawyers walked into federal court asking for a 90-day delay — not to fight the lawsuit, but to “reach an agreement.” An agreement between Donald Trump and Donald Trump, paid for with your money.
But then something unexpected happened.
Judge Kathleen Williams looked at this circus and basically said: “Wait a second. You are telling me you are suing yourself and expect me to approve a $10 billion payment from the U.S. Treasury directly into your personal pocket? Absolutely not.”
She rejected the 90-day delay. She demanded separate reports from both sides — despite both sides effectively being controlled by the same person. Then she took the extraordinary step of appointing three of the nation’s most respected law firms as independent advisers to the court.
Why?
Because $10 billion of taxpayer money is at stake.
What is really happening here is terrifying: a sitting president allegedly using the power of his office, and a Justice Department under his influence, to settle a personal lawsuit with himself and funnel public money into his own bank account.
Constitutional law already has a name for this: a collusive lawsuit.
The Supreme Court ruled on this principle more than 200 years ago. If both sides are effectively the same party, the courts have no authority to proceed. The Constitution requires a real conflict, real opposing sides — not a friendly deal between a man and his reflection in the mirror.
And this is not some isolated stunt. Critics argue it is part of a broader strategy: stage a fake legal battle, force a surrender, cash the check, and walk away.
But this time the number is staggering: $10 billion.
Money that could repair roads, fund schools, support veterans, or feed hungry children.
Instead, critics say it is being redirected through one of the most transparent legal scams America has ever witnessed.
And the people supposed to defend the public interest? The Justice Department. Government officials whose job is to protect taxpayers.
They are not fighting. They are not even pretending to fight.
The judge sees it. Top legal scholars see it. The Constitution itself sees it.
The only remaining question is whether the system still has enough courage to say “No.”
Because if a president can sue himself and pay himself with public money, then the word “government” no longer means anything.
It simply means: the person holding the pen writes the check — and everyone else pays the bill.

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Heather Cox Richardson is spot-fucking-on — and it was all preventable.

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

AOC: "Virginia was an election of 3 million Americans. This court did not overturn a map, it overturned an election."

She is spot on. 🔥

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: "This is a COUP!" Laura Loomer, Trump groupie and professional conspiracy gremlin, has a full meltdown over Barack Obama meeting with Canadian PM Mark Carney!"

In a midnight rant, Loomer posted:

“Why is Barack Hussein Obama meeting with world leaders while President Trump is in office? This is a coup.”

The sheer hypocrisy is Olympic-level, as is the hilarity. This is the same Loomer who cheered when Trump hosted Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago while Biden was still president. Suddenly, it’s treason when a Democrat does it.

Even richer is the pearl-clutching of MAGA crowd about the Logan Act -- the same dusty law they completely ignored when real estate developers and “special envoys” Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were jetting around the Middle East cutting personal business deals while negotiating foreign policy on behalf of the United States government.

Trump’s family and inner circle treat the White House like their personal grift operation and it’s just “genius dealmaking” but when retired statesman Obama has a polite meeting with a foreign leader it’s a “coup.”

Loomer and the rest of the Trump cult aren’t serious people. They’re professional outrage machines who only care about rules when they can use them as weapons against Democrats.

It’s all amusing in the case of Loomer, the whack job alleged Trump service provider, but otherwise it’s just exhausting putting up with the selective outrage over a constituency that sees right and wrong through the prism of an amoral, felonious grifter's incoherent rantings.

If Loomer’s unhinged conspiracy ranting and the staggering MAGA hypocrisy just tire you out, please like and share this post.

[💕 Brittany Belle 💕 @BrittanyinTexas]

The media moved on like nothing happened.

A sitting congressman, Ted Lieu, said on the record the Epstein files are being blocked because they show Trump raped and threatened to kill children.

Keep sharing this so it doesn’t get buried.

[Suzie rizzio @Suzierizzo1]

This girl is amazing! She told the Santa Ana Mayor to stop rolling her eyes and to get off her phone at a City Council meeting! 👊👇💪👍👋

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Maine Governor Janet Mills hits back hard at Donald Trump after he pathetically demands that she issue a "full throated apology" for daring to publicly challenge him at the White House.

This is how you put the MAGA bully in his place...

"If the current occupant of the White House wants to protect women and girls, he should start by protecting the women and teenage girls who are suffering miscarriages and dying because they can’t get basic, life-saving health care in states across this country," Mills said at an event in Bangor, Maine.

"If he truly cares about women and girls and people of this country, let’s see the economic plan. Let’s see the health care plan. Let’s see the education plan," she continued.

She took a shot at Trump's Truth Social habits by saying that she doesn't communicate with public officials "by social media" and that the Constitution does not permit Trump to "make laws out of gold cloth or by tweet or Instagram posts or press release or executive order.”

“That’s just fundamental law, and I stand for the rule of law and the separation of powers," she added. "Look, the issue isn’t about transgender sports. People in Maine and across the country are waiting for an economic plan from the current occupant of the White House, and so far we’ve seen none."

Trump's demand for an apology came in a Truth Social rant after Mills boldly challenged him during a meeting of governors at the White House. When the president threatened to slash federal funding to states to enforce his trans athlete ban, Mills shouted out "see you in court."

In addition to the apology, Trump asked for a promise that Governor Mills "will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled."

Of course, there's nothing illegal about Mills voicing opposition to Trump's mounting fascism. His efforts to enforce his will on the states exposes the lie that Republicans support "states' rights."

In truth, they only support states' rights to do exactly what the MAGA cult leader demands.

Please retweet and ❤️ if you stand with Governor Mills — and consider joining the growing exodus to Tribel, a new pro-democracy social network that is exploding in popularity because Twitter and Facebook are trying to stop its growth — which is only making Tribel grow even faster. Please follow us on Tribel to get all of our breaking news alerts sent straight to your phone or computer by clicking the following link: https://t.co/HnJzSKjCwX

[Acyn @Acyn]

Sanders: You have a president who is suing ABC and CBS and the Des Moines register. He is threatening to investigate PBS and NPR. He loves media that fawns on him.. If you cannot take the criticism, get the hell out of politics

[Winter @LeftyWinter]

@kylegriffin1 Migrants pay billions in taxes.

Horrible !

[NowThis Impact @nowthisimpact]

When this man approached a group of protesters waving Mexican flags, the interaction definitely didn’t go how we expected